CHAPTER 5: SHE SURVIVED

KATHLEEN

"Please!" I cried. "Let me go."

He tore a piece of fabric from the neckline of my dress and lifted it to his face, inhaling deeply, over and over.

He released me and stepped back, still sniffing the torn scrap, and with every breath he took, his rage seemed to climb higher instead of settling.

He turned from me entirely and began tearing the room apart — furniture, glass, anything within reach.

"Leave!" he roared over his shoulder, the piece of dress still clenched in his fist.

I didn't need telling twice. One look at his eyes told me that another second wasted in that room would be the last mistake I ever made.

I scrambled up off the floor and bolted for the door without a backward glance, wrenching it shut behind me the moment I cleared it.

The guards outside stared at me like they were looking at a ghost, disbelief written plainly across both their faces.

Honestly, I could hardly believe it myself — that I'd walked out of that room breathing, in one piece, when fourteen girls before me hadn't.

I didn't stop to explain anything to them.

I ran, legs carrying me faster than I thought they could, straight back to the room where the others were being held.

The moment I burst through the door, I noticed that the dead bodies had already been cleared away.

I slammed the door shut behind me and slid straight down onto the floor, my legs finally giving out beneath me.

I sat there gasping, chest heaving, still trying to process how close I'd come to losing everything in that room.

He'd been seconds away from taking what I'd protected my whole life. Seconds away from ending it entirely.

And some sick, quiet part of me understood that if he had touched me — if he'd actually gone through with it, I doubted I would have survived it at all.

The door burst open again.

Beta Fin, Lord Tarry, and the cold-faced woman from earlier all stormed in at once, their eyes locking onto me with a shock so raw it looked almost like fear.

They stared at me like I'd become something else entirely in that room, something none of them had expected to walk back out.

"She survived?" the woman breathed, her voice dropping to a stunned whisper, disbelief written across her face.

Beta Fin stepped forward first.

“You went in there. You fed him." He crouched down and grabbed my arms, turning me to face him properly, checking me over.

"Ah—" I winced, pain flaring where his grip caught bruises I hadn't even had time to notice yet.

"And yet he didn't kill you." His eyes swept over my face, searching. "Didn't touch you either?"

"We've found her," Lord Tarry cut in, a genuine, almost giddy smile breaking across his face. "The rightful surrogate."

I sat there in silence. I was still too shaken to do more than watch them talk around me like I wasn't the one who'd nearly died in that room ten minutes ago.

Beta Fin turned to the woman. "Alaina. Teach her everything she needs to know."

He gave the order flatly and walked out, Lord Tarry trailing behind him.

The door shut, and Alaina turned to face me fully. Her expression hadn't softened at all.

"You're a very lucky girl," she said, crossing the room toward me.

I stared blankly ahead. "What happens to my life now?"

Something shifted on her face — the closest thing to a smile I'd seen from her yet, though it looked more like a smirk stretched over unfamiliar muscles.

"Tell me exactly what happened there."

I let out a long breath, forcing myself back through it. I needed an explanation just as badly as she did.

"I walked in, calmed him down enough that he actually started eating." I paused, the memory folding back over me.

"Then he just — switched. Got furious out of nowhere. I didn't understand what I'd done wrong." I lifted my gaze to hers. "He tore a piece off my dress and kept smelling it, and the more he smelled it, the angrier he got."

Her brow furrowed, gaze dropping to the torn fabric and my exposed collarbone.

She stepped closer, leaning in, and sniffed — once, then again, moving closer to actually smell my skin, then snatching up the ruined dress itself and inhaling deeply.

Her face twisted into the exact same scowl the King had worn.

"Did you notice something?" I asked, unable to keep the question in.

"Who gave you this dress?" she asked instead, lifting the torn hem between two fingers.

I swallowed hard, looking down at the fabric myself.

"My ex-boyfriend. He gave it to me for the mating festival." Saying it out loud left something bitter sitting in my chest.

She nodded slowly. "Another man's scent is woven into this dress. That's what set him off. You're pure — but this dress complicated things for you the moment he caught the scent."

I stared down at the ruined fabric, understanding everything. That's why he changed. That's why everything fell apart the moment he caught the scent.

"Next time, you'll wear something new. Untouched," Alaina said.

"Next time?" I nearly shouted it. "You want me to go back there? Are you all trying to get me killed?"

"You're the only one who's managed to get anywhere near him," she said, unbothered. "That matters more than you seem to understand."

"I nearly died in there."

"But you didn't." Her voice sharpened, cutting the argument off before it could fully form. "That's the only part that matters."

I swallowed the rest of my protest and nodded, defeated.

"Tomorrow, you'll bring him breakfast. Casper is expected to visit and stir up trouble again, so keep out of sight — you don't want to become his next target either."

She said it plainly, like she was handing out chores rather than a death sentence.

"What if it goes wrong again? What if he loses control the same way?"

The question had been eating at me since the moment she mentioned tomorrow.

"Don't let any man's scent touch you beforehand, and you'll be fine." She turned toward the door, then paused halfway through it.

"Rest. Tomorrow's going to be a long day." She left, the door clicking shut behind her.

I pushed myself up from the floor and walked to the window, staring out over the sprawling city beyond it.

Lights flickered on in every direction, scattered like something almost beautiful against the dark — a strange, quiet contrast to everything churning inside me.

My thoughts drifted immediately to Sam. I checked the clock on the wall, it was past midnight now.

‘Please hold on until I come back to you. I'll do whatever it takes to survive this. Whatever it costs me.’

‘Tomorrow. Feed him breakfast.’ I turned the thought over bitterly.

They were pushing me straight back into the fire and wouldn't stop until they'd watched it swallow me whole, or until it didn't.

I looked down at the ruins of my dress one last time.

"Time to get rid of everything about Troy," I whispered to the empty room. "I just hope I survive whatever tomorrow decides to bring."